


kunzimortem

by dw_fwedewick_heweiden



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Betrayal, Character Death, Child Abandonment, Child Death, Gore, Impalement, Impaling, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Nonchronological Order, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Self-Harm, This is just lore storage LOL, multiple POVs, my tagging is shit, no beta we die like samuel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dw_fwedewick_heweiden/pseuds/dw_fwedewick_heweiden
Summary: tw for gore and all that jazz
Relationships: OC/OC
Kudos: 2





	1. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for gore and all that jazz

_ Hunger. _

He sees nothing.

_ Hunger. _

Nimble fingers find the knife on his belt as the bushes behind him rustle loudly.

_ Hunger. _

Blood. He can feel blood on his hands. It makes him feel a little more satisfied. A little better. A little happier.

_ He needs it. _

His hunger gets the best of him again. Needle-sharp teeth sink into flesh, tearing it off the bone as he feasts.

_ Satisfaction. _

The blood on his body only serves to enthuse him. What’s next is the best part.

_ Needlework. _

Sinew as thread, a lost tooth as a needle. He crafts what is left of the body into something different, something new.

_ Imagine it is your friends. Imagine it is your leader. _

That thought makes him happy. A cheery whistle rings out through the clearing.

_ They can’t leave you if they’re dead. _

One day he’ll make dolls of them, too. Not yet. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Someday.


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for gore n a brief mention of self harm and all that jazz

Blood pools on the floor at his feet, wetting his feet. The smell is overwhelming, mingling with the sweet scent of flowers and herbs.

Flowers. Flowers...

He crouches down, pulling what he thinks is a flower off the body on the floor. Fur sticks to his hands, sticky with blood from his kill. Kills? There’d been more than one of them, he’s sure of it. There’d been…two, right? Two.

_ They were your friends, _ his mind reminds him.  _ They’re still your friends. _

He blinked. To the best of his ability to, anyway. The flower in his hand feels a little heavier than it should be.

The door opens. He hears someone enter, footsteps coming up right behind him. Judging by the lack of a response to the bodies, he’s guessing it’s either Lockheed or Rigil. He doesn’t speak, just stays where he is on the floor.

The person behind him laughs. Rigil, it’s Rigil. Of course it is. “All according to plan,” she whispers, and then she moves elsewhere in the room. He hears her meddling with the corpses. Taking a trophy, maybe? He should be the one doing that, he’s the one who killed them after all, but he doesn’t object to it. She won’t take what he needs. She knows better than that.

She leaves, after a bit. After it’s clear he’s not going to talk to her. He stays. His fingers itch for his needle, but something stops him.

_ They were your friends. _

He mulls that over in his head. Friends. Were they friends? He wasn’t sure. He isn’t sure, right now, either, but it doesn’t really matter since they’re dead on the floor.

Maybe they were his friends, he thinks. He remembers Aster helping him wrap up his cuts in the middle of the night, and he remembers falling asleep on top of Samuel sometimes when they had to stay out overnight and joking around with both of them and-

They…

They’re his friends?

Were. They were his friends. He killed them. He-

He…

He lets the flower drop from his hand. His body feels cold and empty, something aching from deep inside of him, like his heart is being pulled out. Reaching a hand out, he touches the soaked and now-cold fur - he’s not sure which body it belongs to. A wave of nausea washes over him, and he jerks his hand back, gagging.

He did this. He killed them. Their blood is on his hands and his clothes and his face, probably, because he’s coated in it like some sort of paint. Disgusting. He’s disgusting.

Working on autopilot, he pulls the needle out of its case, hesitating as he holds it in his hands. He doesn’t know which one’s which. He won’t be able to do them justice, not really, not when he’s the one who did this to them.

The needle finds its way into his own skin. It doesn’t hurt. It never hurts. He leaves it there, a well deserved punishment. He deserves more, but more wouldn’t do anything. He knows it wouldn’t do anything.

Standing up, he futilely attempts to brush off his clothes, only succeeding in getting them more bloody. He grabs one of the corpses and starts dragging it towards the exit he knows is at the back of the building.

They at least deserve to be buried.


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for gore and character death and all that jazz

It’s okay. He’s okay.

He repeats this over and over in his head. He’s okay. Everything will be alright. It might seem bad right now, but it will all be over soon.

Absentmindedly, Piasa stares at the blood on his hands, wondering what the afterlife is like. He knew this was coming. He’s not scared. (Or so he tells himself. The fear coursing through his veins shows in his frills. He ignores it, pushes it down. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.)

He just...didn’t expect it to be so soon. Yes, that’s what it is. He’s not afraid. It’ll be okay.

He lies down on the ground, the blood leaking out of the deep gash in his side pooling beside of him. There’s no chance he lives through this. They won’t find him in time, he knows it for a fact. They’ll blame his death on one of the guards. He feels bad for the poor guy. Can’t be helped, though.

Darkness edges on his vision. He’s run out of time. Coldness seeps into his bones, and he finds he can’t bring himself to move any part of his body. That’s fine. He wasn’t planning on moving anyway.

Piasa closes his eyes and lets the dark take him.


	4. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for child abandonment??? i guess??? also the arcanist is there but only briefly so i will not tag him

His name is Infidel.

This is all that he knows about himself; he is barely out of the egg before he’s already been ushered away, to a place he’s never seen before. To the foot of a cliffside. On top of that is a tall spire, tall enough that it goes well past the fluffy things in the sky. The Observatory, they call it.

They climb the hill to the top of the cliff, and then some of the stairs inside the Observatory, until they make it to a little balcony on the side of it. There’s a stand there; there were probably more balconies on the tower, but this one was for him.

He’s told to wait on the stand until someone comes back for him. He does. Nobody comes back.

Infidel is a child, though, and easily bored, as most children are. He doesn’t leave the tower, though he briefly considers it before deciding it’s not worth it. Instead, he busies himself with staring up the huge tower. If he squints, he can see something curled up near the top, wispy pink fog obscuring most of the figure.

Infidel wonders if that is the Arcanist he heard about on the walk. He wasn’t really listening to the spiel he was given. He kept getting distracted by everything around him; he regrets it a little, but not too much. It couldn’t be that important, right?

An hour passes. Two hours. Three.

The Arcanist doesn’t come down from his perch. He almost wishes he would, but it probably wouldn’t be for anything good, so he shouldn’t.

Nighttime comes. Then morning. Nobody has come for him yet. He wonders if they ever will.

Six hours into the first day, Infidel tries making fog. Problem is, he doesn’t really know how to do magic or anything. It doesn’t work. He wonders if the Arcanist would be disappointed.

Eight hours into the first day, he takes a nap. When he wakes up, he’s lost track of the hours and it’s gotten dark. The fog glows bright against the dark sky, and Infidel marvels at it from his stand. He wonders if he’ll ever get to do something like that.

The night is cold, and he is lonely. Deciding to ignore both of those things, Infidel lies down and goes to sleep. He wakes up in the morning. No one has come for him.

On the morning of the second day, when he’s lost track of the hours, he tries again. It still doesn’t work. This time he’s sure the Arcanist would be disappointed. He gives up on it for now. Maybe later.

On the afternoon of the second day, they come back for him, and he leaves the Observatory and the Arcanist in the distance. By the time they’ve gotten to wherever they’re going, it’s nothing more than a shadow on the horizon.

The forest he’s been brought to is deep, and dark, and the leaves sparkle with strange blue lights. He marvels at it for a bit. It’s magic. It has to be. He resolves to try the fog thing again tomorrow.

Infidel wonders if he’ll ever see the Arcanist again. A part of him hopes for it. Another part of him never wants to go back. It doesn’t matter; he can make up his mind later. For now, he just has to find his way to wherever he’s supposed to be this time.

After the person who led him here leaves, there’s no one to guide him. He is alone again. Eventually, he goes to sleep against a tree, and the next morning he makes a nest there. It’ll do for now.

(And it is on his second month of living that he manages to make fog.)


	5. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't actually remember if this was a part of the main lore or not but it's going here anyway

he shouldn’t have wandered so far from home. the disease spreads and it doesn’t stop spreading. it’s not as bad as it should be, or as it could grow to be, but the blisters hurt when they burst and they get in the way.

he doesn’t stop walking. he can’t stop walking.

death isn’t an option.

he stops at the remains of a river, dried out and dusty. it seems as good as any place to rest. the dust gets in his feathers, but he doesn’t care. the metal at the bottom digs into his flesh, but he doesn’t mind. more for him to do, if he pleases.

he sleeps there in the dust. he wakes up in the morning and regrets doing so.

he keeps going. he keeps walking.

death isn’t an option.

he doesn’t stop.

the dust in his feathers is still there.

when he settles again, it is for the last time, or so he tells himself (it’s a lie, it always is). the same dried out river, just further down the line. dust in his feathers, metal at his body; resting at the border between two deities. what god will see him, he wonders?

perhaps none at all.

he does not rise again. (or does he? he can’t quite seem to remember. everything is hazy, as it usually is. it doesn’t concern him, not yet.) he doesn’t die. or maybe he does. nothing is certain. he doesn’t mind, though. it’s peaceful.

it won’t stay that way, or maybe it will and he’s just paranoid. he doesn’t care enough to tell the difference. the hum of the metal below him keeps him occupied. it’s enough, for now. it won’t be, eventually. the time will come again.

he’ll rise again, the dust and him.


	6. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for impalement, child death, all that jazz

A small mirror hatchling wanders through a field with his sister, picking flowers and placing them in a little woven basket as he wanders. The two siblings don’t have a goal in mind; they simply came outside to have a little fun, as children often do. The sister seems to be having a grand time playing pretend, while the brother is content to simply gather flowers and watch bugs crawl around in the grass.

A nearby forest catches the sister’s eye. Excited, she drags her brother closer to it, talking so fast that he doesn’t really catch what she’s saying. He doesn’t mind, though. The forest is probably a bit cooler than the field, anyway. It’s gotten a little too warm for him.

The forest is damper than the field, and much, much darker, but the brother doesn’t really care that much. There’s flowers to pick and bugs to watch her, as well, and if it makes his sister happy, then he’s happy. Simple as that.

Bright colors catch the edge of his vision, and he scampers over, leaving his sister’s side for the first time to investigate. She doesn’t take much notice, too caught up in her own little world.

The colors turn out to be a cluster of flowers, and he begins gathering them, placing them gently in his basket. He notices another cluster a bit further away, and wanders over to them, picking them as well. More bright colors catch his eyes; the flowers get a bit denser deeper into the woods, though the woods also gets darker and darker. It can’t be that dangerous, though, and his basket’s not full yet, so he trots over to the flowers to add them to his growing collection.

First mistake.

The brother hops from flower cluster to flower cluster in his quest to gather as many flowers as possible, going further and further away from the edge of the woods in the process. When he finally fills his basket, he stands upright, balancing the basket on his tail, and looks around. With a jolt, he realizes he doesn’t know how to get back.

Slightly panicked, the hatchling picks a random direction to head off in; unfortunately, it’s the wrong direction, and he ends up going deeper into the forest. The farther he travels, the darker it gets, and the more lush and dense the greenery becomes, making it harder for him to keep walking. Eventually, he gives up, sitting on the ground looking thoroughly defeated. He doesn’t hear the bush rustle behind him.

Second mistake.

The hatchling is grabbed roughly from behind and held up by the scruff of his neck; something very large and covered in plant growth inspects him closely, bright eyes scanning him up and down. The eyes catch on his own bright red eyes, and whatever has a hold of him scowls.

He is dropped unceremoniously on the ground, and gazes up at the large creature - monster? Is it a monster, or just a very large animal? He isn’t really sure - as it studies him further. It seems to get more displeased the longer it looks at him, as though he is something vaguely disgusting and definitely unwelcome.

“Hello?” he squeaks, his voice quiet and very high in pitch.

Third mistake.

The creature stares down at him with malice. It grabs the hatchling once more, looking him in the eyes before dropping him back onto the ground, where he lays, stunned. The vines around him begin to shiver and twist around his legs, pinning him to the forest floor. He tugs at them, but they refuse to budge even an inch.

The creature looms over him, pulling a large stick off of a tree. He feels a pain in his middle as it slams the stick straight through him; it goes clean through him, grinding against the ground. The pain makes him wail, and the creature responds to the noise violently, driving another stick through his neck.

Blood pools below the hatchling as his life drains into the ground, the plant life greedily eating it up. The creature nods, satisfied, and detaches the dying hatchling from the ground, carrying him to just outside of where its portion of the forest starts and dumping his body on the ground.

The forest does not tolerate intruders.

After a long time, another, older mirror stumbles across the picked-clean bones of the hatchling. He regards them with great sadness, and carefully gathers as many of them as he can in his arms, carrying them a good ways away from the place they had lain for so many years. He only misses one - the small skull lays forgotten under a bush, roots curled around it.

He digs a small hole and gently rests the bones inside of it, before covering them with dirt once more. A small cross made of sticks is pushed into the ground above where the bones lay. After he’s finished, the mirror steps back to observe his work, sighing slightly.

It is not the first time he has done this, and it will not be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case it isnt obvious the hatchling is caol, his sister is carys, the creature is aenne and the one who finds the bones is ceonsiess


End file.
